On Tuesday Reutersreported from Australia, revealing that a lawyer for Apple, Inc. (AAPL) had announced his company's decision to reject a cross-licensing offer from Samsung Electronics Comp., Ltd. (SEO 005930).

I. Apple Seeks Court-Enforced Smart Phone and Tablet Monopoly

Apple and Samsung are currently number one and number two, respectively, in global smartphone and in global tablet sales. While Apple currently holds the lead, Samsung last quarter posted over three times the growth of Apple, making it the world's fastest growing smartphone company. In a bid to try to slow its surging rival, Apple is going after Samsung in court [1][2][3][4] [5][6][7] with lawsuits.

While Apple claims that it approached Samsung prior to the lawsuit with an undisclosed proposal, Apple has thus far refused all settlement offers from Android manufacturers, instead looking to ban their sales in court.

Apple claims that it owns sole rights internationally to make a rectangular glass multi-touch tablet with a "minimalist" design (typically interpreted as a design having one or less face buttons). It holds multiple regional patents on a minimalist tablet design from 2004, which it is using to try to enforce this claim.

In Australia, where the case in this report is being contested, Apple holds three key multi-touch patents -- a patent on the manufacturing of a capacitive touch screen used in the iPad 2 and Galaxy Tab 10.1 (patent AU 2005246219), a patent covering selective rejection of inadvertent finger movements on a touch screen (patent AU 2008258177), and a heuristics patent used to correct a user's finger movements when scrolling vertically on a screen (patent AU 2007286532).

Essentially, Apple pieced together seemingly obvious or widely used techniques and sought patents on them. For example with the AU 2008258177 patent, it combines the common input filtering mechanism found in wireless mice, electronic steering, and more with a multi-touch input device and asserts that to be patentable. In AU 2007286532, Apple combines mild artificial intelligence -- a heuristic (experience-based algorithm) -- with multi-touch finger motions to provide superior motions.

Without input filtering virtually any electronic input device feels glitchy and temperamental. But Apple is in essence claiming that it owns exclusive rights to apply well researched techniques -- filtering and AI learning -- to multi-touch. Needless to say, this is a claim that its rivals, including Google, Inc. (GOOG), find questionable; particularly given the body of peer-reviewed research on the topic published in the 80s and 90s.

If Apple succeeds in either of its claims, it will essentially be able to force Android smartphones and tablets in certain regions to adopt undesirable modifications -- for example glitchy touch interfaces and clumsy extra buttons.

Fig. 2: Apple claims exclusive rights to apply commonly used software techniques like filtering or artificial intelligence to multi-touch input, despite the fact that most of these multi-touch technologies were developed in the 1980s and 1990s [pictured: Early multi-touch interface by Myron Krueger shows pinch zooming; source: Bill Buxton].

However, Samsung has somewhat of a victory under its belt as well. In a decision largely misinterpreted by many news outlets, Apple won a single infringement claim against Samsung in the Netherlands. However, that infringement claim only applied to one easily-removable feature within a single Android app, while Apple's broader claims were rejected. Thus Samsung is not expected to see significant tablet or smartphone sales disruption in the Netherlands -- a victory for the South Korean firm.

The most important ruling, arguably, for Samsung may come this week, when a federal judge decides whether to bow to Apple's request for a preliminary injunction banning all Samsung Android smartphone and tablet imports to the U.S. Apple is suing Samsung in Northern California District Court and claims that the the ban is necessary to prevent Samsung from "slavishly" copying its products.

Fig. 3: A decision on whether to ban U.S. sales of Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets could come as soon as this week.

If a ban were to be put in place Samsung's last hope would be to succeed in banning Apple's imports in its countersuits [1][2]. Such a dual-ban could force Apple to agree to cross-licensing out of self-interest. Apple clearly would prefer a one-sided ban, which would allow it to stifle Samsung's product lineup, but it remains to be seen if it will be able to have its way with the American trade court.

The Samsung ruling is very important to the market in general as a preliminary injunction could signal the first of several similar rulings against the top Android manufacturers. These rulings could give Apple a court-enforced monopoly in the U.S. -- or alternatively, be the final nail in the coffin of Apple's bid for market dominance.

Deutsche Telekom AG's (ETR:DTE) T-Mobile USA and Verizon Communications, Inc. (VZ) have filed amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs [1][2] opposing Apple's request for a preliminary injunction stating it would have a catastrophic effect on the American phone market, where Android currently accounts for over half of smartphones sold.

Basically, the German court held that nobody is allowed to market a product which looks remotely like that. Slightly different dimensions, aspect ratios, or number of buttons (which were all true for the Galaxy Tab) don't matter. If it's similar, it's banned. Look at it and decide for yourself.

If you want to say, they sued based on an overly broad (in my opinion) patent, then say that. Don't say, "Apple claims no one else can make a tablet" or some such statement that Apple didn't actually make.

The situation is bad enough as it is, without putting words in someone else's mouth. As far as I am concerned, you should be able to make an exact clone of something as long as you don't steal (patented) technology to do it.

On the other hand, there's no question Samsung's design and packaging mimic Apple's--which I think is fine. But let's not pretend it's just because it's "minimalist" and "rectangular."

If you read Apple's court docs that have been made public they contain passages such as:

quote: Before Apple’s introduction of the first iPhone product, no other company was offering a phone with these features. Prior mobile phones were often bulkier and contained physical keypads. Some had a rocker-style navigation button and sets of buttons for numbers and calling features. Others had a front panel with a partial or full QWERTY keyboard and a screen. None had the clean lines of the iPhone, which immediately caused it to stand apart from the competition.

It's clear from these passages that the company believes it holds exclusive rights to manufacture these minimalist designs.

They may not put it that bluntly, but that's essentially what they're arguing.

Remember, they're saying that Motorola, Samsung, and HTC's diverse minimalist tablet lineups are ALL in infringement of its IP. Clearly they believe ubiquitous ownership of minimalist designs.

This is a good quote. However, it doesn't constitute the whole of Apple's argument.

If you read their whole complaint, they spend a lot of time basically congratulating themselves on the work they did, and what they accomplished. Their point? Because of all that work, they deserve some consideration in their claims of copying. They are setting the stage for why Samsung's copycatting is so harmful to them.

Personally, I think it is crap, but at the same time, it is pretty obvious Samsung has been trying to make Apple-like products, and succeeding. Their boxes are very similar, and (some of) their phones look like Samsung versions of iPhones. It's not like it was an accident that their "minimalist" design is a lot like Apple's. That said, I just don't think Apple deserves any protection for the look of their device. The Apple logo, maybe, but that's about it.

quote: If you read their whole complaint, they spend a lot of time basically congratulating themselves on the work they did, and what they accomplished. Their point? Because of all that work, they deserve some consideration in their claims of copying. They are setting the stage for why Samsung's copycatting is so harmful to them.

Personally, I think it is crap, but at the same time, it is pretty obvious Samsung has been trying to make Apple-like products, and succeeding. Their boxes are very similar, and (some of) their phones look like Samsung versions of iPhones. It's not like it was an accident that their "minimalist" design is a lot like Apple's. That said, I just don't think Apple deserves any protection for the look of their device. The Apple logo, maybe, but that's about it.

Again if you read the complaints in their entirety, long passages are devote to describing Apple's IP rights to the "simplicity" and "clean" looks of the iPad and iPhone. Essentially they are asserting that they own exclusive rights to a minimalist design.

You can argue semantics, but when they sue all three of the top minimalist Android tablet makers -- all of which have different sorts of designs, it's hard to come to any conclusion other than that.

quote: Not seeing the word "minimalist" in quotes that you have attributed to Apple...

The German judge used the word "minimalist" to sum up Apple's more verbose design claims (see above).

Specifically, he stated:

quote: "The court is of the opinion that Apple’s minimalistic design isn’t the only technical solution to make a tablet computer, other designs are possible. For the informed customer there remains the predominant overall impression that the device looks."

Apple use words like "clean" and "glass surface", etc. laid out over many sentences. The word minimalist concisely summarizes the design philosophy Apple is describing (as noted by the German judge) and laying legal claim to.

However, if Apple used this more phrase its legal documents would be a few pages less long and it can't have that.

Again, I've written all of this before, just go to the search bar and read my past coverage on the topic.